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State Farm agent from Spencerport in commercials with NBA star

Dominic Agostini, a State Farm agent who has an office in Spencerport, flew to Los Angeles in early September to record four commercials with NBA players, from left, Damian Lillard, DeAndre Jordan and star point guard Chris Paul.(Photo: STATE FARM)

Dominic Agostini is a Syracuse basketball fan, but he hasn’t watched a game this season without repeated interruptions. His phone buzzes repeatedly and it has nothing to do with the way the Orange have played.

“About a month ago during a game I got to my phone and there were like six texts from friends from all over the country — Florida, Virginia, Massachusetts,” Agostini recalled.

That was Agostini giving Paul “knuckles” after skunks invaded Paul’s house and made it smell worse than any locker room, and there he was again, standing with Paul as the point guard scolded fellow NBA players DeAndre Jordan and Damian Lillard for trashing Paul’s living room.

Agostini has been a State Farm agent since 2004. The insurance giant selected him for the series of commercials. A 38-year-old father of three, he spent about a week in Los Angeles in September to shoot them. State Farm aired the first one in late October, then debuted another in November and the third one on Christmas Day. All three are airing now and a fourth debuted on Saturday night during the NBA’s All-Star weekend coverage on TNT of its skills challenge, 3-point shooting contest and dunk contest from New Orleans.

“I haven’t watched a basketball game and not seen one,” said Agostini, whose office is at 409 South Union St. in Spencerport. “They’re running (the commercials) all the time. It’s kind of a big spend, a big (advertising) campaign.”

About 3½ years ago State Farm asked Agostini if he’d go to a “casting call,” for agents in Buffalo. The company has about 18,000 agents, he said, and likes to have about 300 in a bank or database to use for possible advertising campaigns.

Agostini was interviewed about some of his interests, which included basketball, and he did a spoof commercial that day in which he was acting out a commercial with Aaron Rodgers – only Rodgers wasn’t there. Agostini had to pretend as if the Packers quarterback was there.

“I called my wife when I was in the parking lot and I said, ‘Amy, I did not miss my calling,’ ” he said, being critical of his performance.

Agostini, who has only a couple of lines in the commercials, said he’d actually forgotten all about the casting call when he received a phone call in late August, asking if he’d be interested in doing a series of commercials with NBA players. He thinks being 6-foot-4 worked in his favor, plus his affection for the game and having played it growing up in Lockport.

Domini Agostini, right, with his "co-star" in a series of State Farm Insurance commercials, NBA All-Star Chris Paul.(Photo: STATE FARM)

“I was taller than two of the three ballplayers, which is kind of funny,” said Agostini, who was only shorter than the 6-11 Jordan.

The trio of NBA players couldn’t have been nicer, Agostini said.

Paul, in particular, was very engaging. The Los Angeles Clippers star asked about Agostini’s family and career. “He was really down to earth, made it real easy to be on set,” Agostini said of the NBA all-star who is injured and was unable to play in Sunday’s game.

Agostini said there wasn’t even a hint of arrogance by Paul. In fact, one day Paul was saying how he had to fly out that night to Boston in order to attend the NBA Hall-of-Fame Induction ceremony on Sept. 9.

Paul had to be there as the recipient of an NBA humanitarian award, Agostini later found out by looking it up.

“He never said anything about that, none of it. He was so humble,” Agostini said.